


A Higher Plane of Education

by often_adamanta



Series: 12 in 12 Challenge [7]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bechdel Test Pass, Gen, History Professor Patty Tolan, Not Beta Read, POV Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:43:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7633093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/often_adamanta/pseuds/often_adamanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Patty knows Erin Gilbert the same way she knows all her fellow female faculty members at Columbia, from professional development luncheons and the rare women’s social event. There’s too few for Patty not to know them all, especially in the sciences, and she’s always been good with names and faces. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>She’s always been good with gossip, too, which means that she’s seen the youtube clip. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Higher Plane of Education

**Author's Note:**

> For Mel, who suggested the idea, and for Patty, because she deserved better.

Patty smiles as she swipes through the metro turnstile, waving hello to the bored looking women in the MTA booth. She gets a blank look in return but doesn’t let it dim her mood. 

She avoids a small, creepy looking dude and pulls out her phone, zooming in on the historic blueprints she’d snapped a photo of before leaving her office. There’s a tunnel on this set of original plans that didn’t match the modern maps, and she wants to take a look herself.

It’s unfortunately rare that Patty escapes from campus because she does love field work and not everyone is able to live in the city in which they specialize. It happens enough that her sturdy work boots are broken in, though, and she jumps down easily from the platform.

There’s a few mumbles from other people behind her, but no one tries to stop her. People typically don’t when she moves with purpose and wears dark, uniform-like overalls. She pauses for a second to fish a flashlight out of her backpack, and then starts walking. 

She follows the tracks until she finds the first maintenance door. She steps into the recess of door, which is deep enough that she’s tucked out of the tunnel and then consults her phone for the train schedule. 

A clatter echoes down the tunnel, like a cascade of gravel. Patty brings her flashlight up, head poking out and looking both ways, but there’s no one there. 

“Better not be rats,” Patty mumbles to herself, squinting at the screen. The tracks should be clear for another ten minutes, plenty of time to make it to the next door. 

She tucks her phone carefully away and starts walking. 

Patty thinks the glow is from another phone screen at first, although who else would be down here on foot checking their phone, she has no idea. “Hello?” she calls out, but no one answers.

As she gets closer, she can see a silhouette, but the glow isn’t coming from the dude’s hand. Or, it _is_ , but not just his hand. His whole body is lit up, like he’d taken in a shower in some weird luminous paint. 

“This is no place for a rave, man,” Patty says, only a few yards away now, and that’s when she realizes that he’s hovering in midair. She freezes. Also, no paint could account for the way she can see through him, her eyes able to follow the subway tracks in a continuous line. 

She starts to back away slowly, retracing her steps while keeping her eyes fixed on whatever it is. It turns, and Patty feels like the world tips under her feet briefly because she _recognizes_ it. Oh, not from the face: there’s not much face left. But the prison uniform is straight out of the old photos she’d collected when researching this station, although the edges are blurred as if it’s hard to keep a solid shape. 

The thing opens its mouth, and Patty turns tail and runs, long legs pumping and gravel crunching under her boots. 

Its screams follow her all the way back to the platform, and she doesn’t stop running until she’s back up on the street, drawing ragged breathes and blinking into the bright afternoon sunlight.

***

Patty knows Erin Gilbert the same way she knows all her fellow female faculty members at Columbia, from professional development luncheons and the rare women’s social event. There’s too few for Patty not to know them all, especially in the sciences, and she’s always been good with names and faces. 

She’s always been good with gossip, too, which means that she’s seen the youtube clip. 

Patty had thought Erin looked crazy in the video, but based on what she just saw in the subway, she’d judged Erin too harshly. It puts her in the same category as Erin’s blowhard colleagues that had been looking for any excuse to get rid of her, and Patty’s angry, in retrospect. They’d used that moment of joy, Erin beaming wider than Patty’d ever seen, to tear her down.

And yeah, the place isn’t much to look at when Patty tracks Erin down, but she promised herself that she isn’t going to make the same mistake twice, so she settles down in a booth and works on her laptop, waiting patiently for Erin.

“Erin!” she says when she looks up later and finds that the other woman has arrived. She climbs out of the booth, and Erin smiles politely, a distant, stranger smile that Patty only recognizes because she’s coaxed the real thing out over shitty cheap wine at awkward work functions. She laughs. “It’s Patty.” 

Erin frowns and blinks before recognition dawns. “Professor Tolan?” she says, “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you, and I’ve never seen… well.” 

Erin’s obviously afraid of offending, but Patty just grins, because it’s true that they’ve never seen each other in casual clothes. “That’s all right. A woman can’t live her whole life in tweed powersuits, am I right?” 

“Of course,” Erin says, tugging at the edge of her blazer self-consciously. “Oh, I apologize, these are my colleagues Dr. Abby Yates and Dr. Holtzmann.” They wave in turn but don’t even look up from what they’re doing. 

“Nice to meet you,” Patty says drily with a raised eyebrow. Neither Abby nor Holtzmann notice.

“What can I do for you?” Erin says after an awkward pause. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but uh, I’m no longer at Columbia.” 

“If she tracked you down to your new work space over the Chinese restaurant, she probably heard about Columbia kicking you out on your ass,” Abby says evenly. 

“They didn’t _kick me out_ ,” Erin mutters, frowning at Abby. 

Patty’s not touching that blatant falsehood. “I saw the video,” Patty says, and Erin cringes before Patty continues with, “So I knew you’d believe me about the ghost.”

“What ghost?” Erin asks. 

Abby and Holtzmann both turn towards her like sharks scenting blood in the water, and after that, it’s chaos. 

***

“What were you even doing in a subway tunnel?” Holtzmann asks, and from anyone else Patty would feel judged, but Holtzmann looks genuinely curious as she wrestles with the equipment. 

“Research,” Erin answers automatically, and then looks flustered. “I mean, I assume. Patty’s writing a book on the history of the New York subway system.” 

“You remember that?” Patty asks, pleased. 

“Of course, you were the only one who said anything interesting that night,” Erin says, and adds, “At the faculty women’s margarita night,” for Abby and Holtzmann. “God, Minnette would not stop talking about what a terrible time she’d had at her cousin’s wedding, and Barb was grading right there at the table and kept interrupting everyone to complain.” 

“And George had those pictures of algae slides,” Patty says. 

“Don’t remind me,” Erin says with a groan. “I didn’t go into biology for a reason. Not a big fan of slimy things, even if they do have scientific value.” 

“It’s true,” Abby agrees, “She didn’t even like putting on sunscreen as a kid.”

“I’ve always liked slime,” Holtzmann says thoughtfully.

No one seems to know what to say to that, but they finally push their way onto the platform just then, so it doesn’t matter.

“Hey,” Patty yells at the guy tagging the subway wall, “Stop that! Do you know how old those tiles are?” 

“No, but I know how much they smell like urine,” the guy says, “Based on that, pretty old?” 

“What is that supposed to be?” Erin asks. 

“It’s a ghost,” he says, painting a few more lines. 

“You saw it, too?” Abby demands, “What did it look like? Was it a class 4?”

“I didn’t see a ghost,” he says and pulls out another can. 

“Really, more painting?” Patty asks. 

“I heard you talking on my way down here,” he says and adds a red circle and slash over the ghost. “There, fixed.” He stuffs his hands back in his hoodie and walks off sharply as a MTA worker appears.

“That way,” Patty and Holtzmann say in unison, pointing in completely opposite directions. The worker rolls his eyes and gives up, heading back the way he came.

“That was incredibly unhelpful,” Abby says, and turns to Patty as Holtzmann snaps a photo of the graffiti, which isn’t even that good. Boy needs some lessons. “Where were you earlier?”

Patty leads them off the platform, and she was totally wrong earlier. After _that_ , it’s chaos.

***

Erin calls her to ask about the historical significance of the theater after her last class of the day, but she interrupts halfway through Patty’s run down of seriously weird shit that has occurred there. 

“I don’t know much about history,” Erin says, “And this is all happening so quickly that I can’t do much research. I know it’s a lot to ask, probably too much, but we need help. We need you.” 

Patty sits quietly in her well-worn desk chair and looks at the pile of essays on one chair and her work boots tucked away and abandoned behind her coat rack. Over the line, she hears Holtzmann yell something indistinct and then the whoosh of the fire extinguisher.

“Erin,” she says, “I think you’re forgetting something.” 

“What? What am I forgetting?” Erin asks. Her voice is tight, like she expects Patty to start tearing into her for even asking.

“I have tenure,” Patty says.

“Oh, right,” Erin says, relieved. “I signed the card last year. So you’ll come?”

“Ask her if she has a car!” Abby yells in the background. 

Patty sighs. “You guys really do need me,” she says. “I’ll be there in twenty.”


End file.
